They were now aimlessly walking and talking to each other. Not much went on during their walk, just a couple wise cracks from Traverse.
“Traverse...”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Can you keep quiet for a little bit?” asked Sapphire
“Why?”
“Because it is starting to annoy me.”
“Fine.”
“Quiet you two.” said Rougestone
“What is it?” asked Sapphire
“I don’t know yet. I can feel someone or something approaching us.”
“How?”
“Through the earth. Shhh, I can feel it getting closer.”
“What is it?” asked Traverse
“Shhh.” Rougestone repeated
“Why? It is not like it can hear us.”
“No, but I need to concentrate. So be quiet.”
“What is his problem?” Traverse whispered to Sapphire
The ground the shook and a something pulled Rougestone underneath the ground.
“Rouge?!”
“He’ll be fine. Remember that he can phase through the ground? He is probably just messing around with us.”
Sapphire just glared at Traverse and ran over to where Rougestone was standing.
“Should you be standing there?” asked Traverse
“Can’t you be quiet for just a second?”
“Maybe I can’t be quiet for a second.” he said while Sapphire was looking at the ground where Rougestone once stood.
“Can you hear me, Rouge?”
“O yeah, like that is going to work.”
Sapphire just ignored him.
“Rouge, come on! If this is a joke, it is not funny! Rouge?!”
“What was that that grabbed him?”
“Does it look like I know?”
“I can deal without the sarcasm, Traverse.”
“Well sorry. Touchy, touchy.”
“You really can’t be serious. The dragon that just got done saying that he was going to look after us just got pulled underground by an unknown force and you want to sit here and argue?”
“He can take care of himself.”
“Ok smarty pants. If he is down there, who is going to take care of us?”
Traverse was just silent for the first time in a while.
“Ok, we have to do something.” Sapphire said after a little bit.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know; something. We can’t just sit here.”
The ground suddenly started to shake again and Rougestone shot out of the ground.
“Rouge! What the heck happened?!”
“I’ll explain it when I get back.” he said as he dove back underground
“Something is wrong.” she said to Traverse.
“You think? He wouldn’t just come shooting out of the ground like he just did on his own!”
“If he comes out again, I am going down there with him.”
“Why? He seems like he’s got it under control.”
“I want to help him.”
“Do whatever you want. I’m not stopping you from doing anything.”
“Thanks for the support.” she said sarcastically
“Now look who’s being sarcastic.”
“Whatever. I wonder if he is going to surface again.”
As if he heard her say that, Rougestone came halfway out of the ground and pulled her under.
“Fine, leave me here alone. I didn’t want to go with you guys.” complained Traverse
“We really have to do something about that sarcasm of yours.” Rougestone said as he resurfaced and dragged Traverse with him; leaving the forest silent.
Sapphire had never traveled underground like Rougestone has. It was pitch black where they were and she could hardly see anything. She felt like she was spinning with her eyes shut; a black blur. She could only feel Rougestone’s grip on her as they moved though the earth. Before she knew it, they were in what seemed like a tunnel. Rougestone had to hold both of them up at first since they had no clue when they were going to reach their destination. There was an ominous green glow that came from Traverse which was the only real source of light that was present in the tunnel.
“You guys can fly you know.”
“Huh? O, right.” Sapphire said as she started to hover in the air.
“You too.” he said to Traverse
“What? You can’t carry me?”
Rougestone just dropped him and Traverse caught himself in mid-air.
“That wasn’t nice.” Traverse said to Rougestone
He ignored him and started to fly in one direction.
“Let’s go you two.” he called to them
Sapphire just nodded and followed right behind Rougestone.
Traverse just shook his head and followed slowly behind them.
The two dragons landed and started to walk and Sapphire spoke up.
“So what was that back there?”
“What?”
“The whole being grabbed and dragged in here.”
“Tunnelers”
“Tunne-whats?” asked Traverse
“Tunnelers.” he repeated
“And they are…?”
“a pain.” he finished her sentence.
“What are they?” she asked
“No one knows exactly who or what they are. All that is known is that they are creatures that can harness earth and shadow.”
“So then they are dragons.”
“Nobody knows so I don’t what they are.”
“Why did they attack you?” asked Sapphire
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
The three of them made their way down the tunnel and into a small box shaped room with the tunnel continuing on the other side of the room. A small figure was sitting on a small stool that was pulled up to what looked like a desk.
“Is that one of them?” asked Traverse
The figure perked up and turned towards them.
“You really can’t keep your mouth shut, can you?” asked Rougestone
“What are you worried about? There is one of them and three of us.”
“You really don’t know when to keep quiet. There are more of them in here than you can see.”
“Ah, you brought some friends I see.” said the figure. Even with Traverse in the room, Sapphire couldn’t make out what it looked like.
“Don’t bother staining yourself to see what they look like. They use shadows constantly to hide their identity.” said Rougestone
“I am not sure of how you know so much about us, but that doesn’t matter right now. What matters now is why you are back down here.”
“What? You expected me to not come back after you all attacked me?”
“Yes, it is true that we attacked you and in some ways, I don’t blame you for coming back. You are also the first ones to actually catch up to us.”
“What are you all up to now?” asked Rougestone
“Can you stop saying that there are more in here? There aren’t!” said Traverse
“You might want to keep your little friend quiet.”
“I have tried. If you want to try, please, be my guest.”
“Ah, now I remember why you know so much about us. O, and just so your friends know, I am not talking about revenge of our little encounter today. No, there was something else.”
“Revenge is not something you should be concerned about at the moment.” the figure continued
“That is far from what I am thinking about at the moment.” replied Rougestone
“Rouge, do you know everyone?” asked Sapphire
“That is the problem with being a wanderer, I practically do know everyone.”
“You sure have one heck of a past if you know all of these creatures, Rouge.” said Sapphire
“Rouge? Cute little nickname. She your girlfriend?” asked the figure
“That is none of your business.” said Rougestone
“Come on now, no need to keep secrets from me.” he said as he stood up but was still about the same size.
“I think there is a need to keep things from you.”
“Come now, why so tense?”
Sapphire was so focused on the mysterious creature to notice that he was right, Rougestone was starting to tense up.
“What is wrong with you?” asked Sapphire
“It is nothing.”
“Come on, Rouge.” the figure started to make fun of his new nickname “Are you going to keep secrets from them about our kind?”
“No.” he said while gritting his teeth.
“Well, tell them how you should have stayed above ground instead of following us.”
As he said this, Rougestone was thrown to the ceiling and held there.
The two of them immediately looked up to where Rougestone was being held.
“Come on, now. Are you going to tell them?”
“Let him go.” said Sapphire while shooting an ice shard at the figure.
“So eager to get into a fight, now aren’t you?” he said as he stopped the ice shard in mid-air and threw it at Rougestone.
“No!” she yelled
The shard hit his left wing; slicing the webbing.
“Care to try again?” the figure asked
Sapphire then charged the figure. She got close enough to hit him but then levitated in place.
“So impulsive, you should think things through before you do them.” he said as he threw her to the side.
Rougestone was completely incapable of moving or saying anything. Traverse kept his distance far from the figure that was still in the center of the small room.
“Do you see, Rouge? Your friend can be quiet when he wants to. He just needs the right motivation.”
Sapphire came to and stood up on her wobbling legs.
“Your girlfriend is very persistent. Strong willed too. I can see why you like her.”
Rougestone struggled under his grip.
“Really, Rouge, why did you bring them down here? You knew this was going to happen.” he said as he looked up at the paralyzed dragon. “O, right, you can’t speak. Hold on.” he continued
“You will die this time!” he yelled at him
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“I have my reasons that I don’t wish to share with you.”
“Then stay quiet.” the figure said as Rougestone’s jaw locked back up.
“You back up standing yet?” he asked as he looked over to where Sapphire was supposed to be; only she wasn’t there. The only noticeable thing was the faint green glow that emitted from the tunnel that the three of them had entered from.
Still being held in the air, Rougestone was let off of the ceiling and lowered to face were the figure’s face would be.
“You are still a mystery to me as much as I am to you.” he said “I could easily throw you into a cage but what fun would that be?”
The figure turned his attention back to what he was doing at the desk. He kept Rougestone in the corner still frozen.
Sapphire was moving as fast as she could down the tunnel with Traverse following her.
“Why did he bring us here?” asked Traverse. He was almost yelling at her.
“I don’t know yet, but there is a reason. There is something that we do not know about.”
“Well, until we figure it out, we’re stuck here. He is our only way out of here.”
“I know, which means that there is something that I could have done, but what?”
“I don’t know. That and I don’t know what the limits you have on your element.”
“I need to think for a second, which means that you need to be QUIET!”
“You won’t get an argument from me this time.”
“I better not.”
They stopped running and Sapphire sat down and closed her eyes.
“Traverse?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep watch.”
“Right.”
*to herself* “What am I missing? This is just like when Rouge and I were training. I need to think this through. What can I do to help us? There are too many questions, but not enough answers. I could try a bunch of different things but I don’t know how many tries I am going to get until he fights back. I guess that is the only that I can do, I just have to think about what I am going to try first.”
Sapphire sat there and thought about her attack strategy and opened her eyes when she felt that she knew what to do.
“Traverse?”
“Yeah? I’m here.”
“I might need you for this.”
“That would explain why he brought me. What do you want me to do?”
“I just need you to distract the shadow guy.”
“Really, what is his name?”
“Focus, Traverse.”
“Right, distract the crazy shadow guy, got it.”
“I just need enough time to get it to snow.”
“Can you do that under here?”
“I can try. He may have some form of psycho kinesis but he can’t stop it from snowing.”
“As long as he doesn’t kill me.”
“I will do as much as I can before we confront him but I have to finish in the room in which I fight him in.”
“Okay.”
“Once I get it to snow, you can get out of there.”
“And if you can’t get it to snow?”
“Get out of there faster.”
“Ready?”
“As ready as I am going to be.”
“Good.” she said as her eyes flared a deep blue.
“Do you think that he is in the same room as before?” asked Traverse
“He should be.” she said as she started down the tunnel. Her foot prints froze the ground as she walked.
“You’re up, Traverse.” she said as they reached the door way of the room. Sapphire stayed out of sight while Traverse flew into the room.
“What’s up everybody?” he exclaimed as he flew in.
Sapphire started making it snow from the cover she was at. She was close enough to the room to have it snow in there. Traverse got the figures attention but he didn’t chase after him. It started to snow in the room and there was enough on the floor for her to fight him. While Traverse got him to look one way, a fist emerged out of the snow where the figure wasn’t looking and slammed down on the figure.
“Ah, Sapphire, I was wondering when you would show up.”
“You didn’t think that I was going to leave without Rouge, now did you?” she replied
“I wanted to see what you could do.”
“Well, you are going to see a lot more.”
The figure walked out of the pile of snow that Sapphire had slammed onto him and he looked over at her.
“So are we going to keep referring to you as ‘The Figure’ or do you have a name?”
“You may call me Earthshadow.”
“Why am I not surprised at that?” she asked “It doesn’t matter now.” she added
“You got a name?”
“What do you think? It’s Sapphire if you must know. Now are we just going to talk or are we actually going to do something?”
Earthshadow focused on Sapphire but nothing happened.
“Having trouble?”
Sapphire had made ice from the floor come up am hold on to her so that Earthshadow could not pick her up.
“Cute little trick, but how do you plan on moving when you are frozen to the ground?”
“That is for me to know and for you to find out.”
“Secrets, secrets, secrets, you guys are full of them!”
Before Earthshadow did or said anything, Sapphire made the ice crawl farther up her body; creating an ice shield that was molded to the shape of her body. She cracked the ice that held her to the ground and look over at Earthshadow. She move freely as if there wasn’t anything on her; the ice appeared to move with her. The amount of ice that was on her was enough to weigh her down so that Earthshadow could not lift her.
“Well, what now?” he asked her
Sapphire just looked at him. She figured out that any type of projectile would just be caught and either thrown at her or at Rougestone. She was going to have to bring the fight to him since it would probably be harder for Earthshadow to use Rougestone against her as a shield if she was closer to him. A face appeared in the snow.
Sapphire looked over to where Rougestone was and noticed that he was on the ground. He gave her a look and she knew what she had to do. The monster tried to emerge from the ground but there wasn’t enough room for it to completely come out. Instead, only its head and right arm were sticking out of the ground. Sapphire froze the rest of the floor in the room while Earthshadow just watched. The ice reached Rougestone’s feet but it didn’t stop, it continued to freeze Rougestone to the ground. Sapphire could see where Earthshadow’s face would be, move into what seemed to be a small grin.
“Freezing your boyfriend might not work.” he finally said as he turned into a shadow to dodge the snowman’s attack. Flames then shot out of the ice sculpture that Sapphire had made from Rougestone.
“He doesn’t have complete control over me, but does have somewhat of an influence on some of the things that I might do. You can beat him, Sapphire.” Rougestone managed to say before his jaw locked again.
Still mostly frozen, Rougestone was snapped free from the floor and floated next to Earthshadow. He started using Rougestone as a flamethrower and targeted Sapphire and the monster.
The room suddenly went pitch black and Traverse was nowhere to be found. In the darkness, a flame made itself apparent and the monster shrieked as there was a loud thud that emitted throughout the tunnels. A small light lit the room up faintly and Sapphire was gone.
“Running again, Sapphire?”
“Nope.” echoed in the room “I just learned a new trick.”
Every time that Earthshadow used Rougestone’s fire; it made the room extremely humid due to the size of room.
“Come now, don’t be shy. Show us your new trick.”
“I am already showing you.” she echoed as Earthshadow felt sharp pain on his back.
The room got dark again as if the only reason that it lit up was to show that Sapphire wasn’t there. The pain eased on his back but then hit him again on his right leg causing him to go limp in pain. Earthshadow tried to locate her through the earth and through shadows but found no trace of her.
“What is she doing Rougestone?!” he asked freeing Rougestone’s ability to talk.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me!” he yelled as the pain shifted to his left arm
“I told you, I don’t know.”
Earthshadow threw Rougestone at the wall and focused all of his attention on Sapphire.
“Where are you?!”
“What, you mean you don’t know? It is because of you that I can do this.”
“I don’t even know what you are doing!” he said as the pain shifted to his left leg.
“That is for me to know and for you to endure.” she echoed
Pain shot into his other leg again but stayed present in his left leg, as well; crippling him. He could feel it slowly making its way up his body and to his chest and out to his arms.
“You going to kill me?” he asked
“It has crossed my mind but I am no murderer. Torturing you seems to be effective enough. O, and a parting gift.” she said and there was a loud crack.
The small light returned and Sapphire was back.
“Traverse, come on out!” she yelled
“Jeez, did you kill him?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Let’s just say that he won’t be walking for a long time.”
Traverse just looked over at the crippled creature that now lay before them.
“Let’s get Rouge and get out of here.”
“Agreed”
Sapphire said her thanks to it and returned her creature back and went over to Rougestone. He cracked the ice with no problem now that Earthshadow had lost his grasp on him.
“I told you that you could do it.”
“I think that you might know more about me than I do myself.”
“Nope, just confidence and trust in you.”
“Are you ok?” she asked looking at his wing
“Yeah, it is not as bad as you think it is.”
“Can we please get out of here now?” asked Traverse
As he said this, about eight figures rose out of the ground.
“Great, more of them.”
“Traverse, have you not learned anything down here? Shut your mouth!”
One of the figures walked towards Sapphire.
“That was our group leader.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You defeated him.”
“I know where this is going.” said Rougestone
Seven of the eight figures turned to shadows and appeared to leave the one that was speaking to Sapphire.
“So, what do you want?”
“It isn’t obvious? We want you to lead us.”
“What? I don’t think that I could do that.”
“If you refuse, we will have to fight you to get a new leader.”
“Sapphire, there is a big difference between fighting one and fighting eight. Unless you’ve got a plan, I suggest that you accept the offer.” Rougestone whispered to her
“And if I have a plan?” she whispered back.
“I hope it works.”
“Just follow my lead with what I am about to do.”
Rougestone nodded and said “I trust you.”
Sapphire then turned to the figure that was standing in front of her.
“Rouge, can you make it hot in here?” she said while facing it.
“Of course.” He said as the floor split and magma started to pool.
“I decline your offer.” she said to the figure.
“Fine, if that is your decision.” he said an faded into the ground.
The only thing that kept the tunnel lit was the faint reddish glow of the lava that was now present in the room. Sapphire looked over at Rougestone as two of the shadows figures emerged from the ground that wasn’t covered in lava. From where he was standing, Rougestone watched as Sapphire somehow disappeared. One of the figures went limp and Rougestone impaled the other one with an earth pillar from behind. It was apparent that these enemies had a lesser knowledge of how to use their powers.
“You know that you are going to have to explain what you are doing right now.” Rougestone yelled
“I know, but let’s get out of here first.” she echoed
“That sounds like a good idea.” Traverse said from the cover he had taken
Another figure came out of the ground and its right leg gave way and Rougestone covered him with lava. After that one was defeated, two more rose and were quickly taken out by the two dragons.
“This seems too easy.” she echoed to Rougestone
“I know, something doesn’t feel right.”
“Yeah, we have already taken out five of them so that means that there should be three more left.”
“Two left.” He said as he dropped a boulder on the figure just as it was rising out of the ground.
“Ok, two left.” she corrected herself. “Nope, one left.” she said as another figure collapsed right behind Rougestone.
“But where is the last one?”
Gems: 1382
Gems: 9878
Gems: 2992
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Gems: 6132
Gems: 582
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